8 Terrifying Urban Legends That’ll Give You Nightmares

Urban legends are a modern form of folklore, normally fictional, but many of the items of this list are true stories, or based on true stories. Urban legends are often made up for entertainment, but they’re also used to explain things we don’t understand like mysterious disappearances or strange noises. What often makes urban legends so scary is that many of them are based on true stories.

The Clown Statue

A teenage girl named Jessica was babysitting for a family in California. The father was a rich business magnate, and so they lived in a big house with an almost endless amount of rooms. The parents go out to a dinner/movie for the night. The father tells the babysitter that once the children are in bed she should go into the living room and watch t.v. In there, since he didn’t want her wandering around the house. The parents left, and she gets the kids into bed and goes to watch t.v. in the living room. She tried watching t.v. but was disturbed by a clown statue in the corner of the room. At first she tried to ignore it but it starts freaking her out so much that she can’t ignore it. She calls the father and says, “Hi, the kids are in bed, but can I switch rooms? This clown statue is really creeping me out.”

The father replied “Get the kids, go next door and call the police.”

“Why?” she asks.

“Just go next door, and call the police, then call me back.”

She grabbed the kids, went to the neighbours and called the police. She then calls the father back to ask what’s going on.

He replied “We don’t have a clown statue. The children have been complaining about a clown watching them sleep but we assumed it was just a nightmare.”

This One Really Happened

A tired insurance salesman named James rented a motel room, and planned to go to sleep. As he walked in, he noticed a rancid smell but was too tired to care, and fell asleep instead. Only a few hours after falling asleep, James was was woken up by the sound of a women’s voice. He looked around for the source of the voice but it was nowhere to be found. He assumed it was just a dream and went back to bed. Not much later James was woken up again by the voice again, and this time he felt something tightening around his neck, making it difficult to breathe. James opened his eyes to see a pale women above him, strangling him. He reached for his suitcase and managed to throw it at her. It went straight through her and she disappeared. One final time he heard a women’s voice coming from underneath the bed. When he went to check underneath, he found a corpse stuffed inside the mattress he was sleeping on. The body was found at the Oceanside Motel in 1988, the woman died of choking.

The Collector

The collector is a Russian urban legend that turned out to be true. The cemetery collector would steal dead bodies from a cemetery and take them back to his house, for a creepy purpose. After taking the bodies back to his house he would dress them up as life sized dolls, with no faces, and platinum wigs. The perpetrator turned out to be historian, who was described by his neighbours as a learned eccentric man. The collector had even mummified the bodies, which is likely why they were faceless.

The Beast Of Jersey

There used to be an urban legend on the little island of Jersey, about a beast who would break into people houses at night and attack women and children. The beast wore a freakish rubber mask, and nail studded wristlets. The community became scared and outraged by the beast, so much so that when an eccentric agricultural worker was accused of being the beast, they burned down his cottage. The agricultural worker than escaped and began to live in exile from the community. But this man wasn’t the beast. On 17 July 1971 Edward Paisnal was stopped by the police after running a red light. He tried to escape police in a car he had stolen earlier. Inside his car, the police discovered parts of the beasts costume. He was sentenced to 30 years in jail.

The Blind Maiden

The Blind Maiden is one of Spain’s most famous urban legends. There’s a website called the Blind Maiden, which is almost always offline and impossible to access. But if you obey the rules then you will be able to see the website. The rules are: You must be alone, you must turn off all the lights in your house, and you must visit the website at exactly midnight on a moonless night. After following the rules, the website will show you a slide show of dead screaming faces, with their eyes ripped out. When the slide show ends you’ll be presented with two buttons, enter and leave. When you click enter, the monitor will switch to camera showing a shadowy figure walking towards your house. You see the figure walk into your room. You see your own back on the monitor. You feel as if there is something behind you, and the last thing you see before you die is the face of the blind maiden. The maiden will rip out your eyes, and add you to the slide show.

Slit Mouthed Woman

There was once a beautiful woman married to a samurai. The samurai suspected her of cheating on him, and in a rage slit her mouth open from ear to ear, and said “who will find you beautiful now. She now lurks the streets of Japan, covering her mouth with a surgical mask. If you run into her she’ll ask you a question, “Do you think I’m beautiful?” if you answer yes, she’ll rip off the mask and shout “How bout now?” If you say no, she’ll kill you with a large pair scissors, and if you say yes, she’ll slit your mouth open so that you can be as pretty as her.

In the wetland plains of Venezuela a man is sometimes spotted, called El Silbon (The Whistler). The whistler is abnormally thin, and tall. Some say he reaches heights of 20 feet. He wears cowboy rags, and a hat, which covers his face. He has a sack flung over his back full of dead bodies, some of which are still decomposing. He continuously whistles a tune, which gets higher in pitch with every note. His victims are always travelling alone, and are usually adulterous. He murders his victims through strangling or blunt force.

In Hong Kong there is an abandoned building called Nam Koo Terrace. The building is almost 100 years old, and used to be owned by a rich family. The family had to abandon it because of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in World War Two. Apparently the building was used to house local women who were forced to become sex slaves for the Japanese. Some time after the war the house was scheduled to be demolished, but it never was and nobody knows why. Local residents all say the house is haunted, and they have good reason to believe this. People often hear screams, and moans coming from the house. In the 1960’s a girl ran out of the house screaming and started trying to attack some nearby police officers. In 2003, 8 girls attempted to spend the night in the house, but ended up regretting it. Eventually the girls began to become mentally distressed, and ran out of the house, all except for one. This one girl started acting strangely, her voice and personality completely changed, it was as if she was possessed. This girl also attacked the police as soon as they encountered her. Some of the girls had to be entered into a hospital. Over 30 suicides have taken place in the building. It’s said that anyone who goes in will see a decapitated women, and hear her piercing screams.